Many people are still puzzled by the story of Theranos. A young female student, Elizabeth Holmes, from Stanford claimed to have developed a blood-testing device using only a few drops of blood to test more than 200 items at 1/10 of traditional costs. The company raised more than $400 million dollars from investors with the valuation of almost $10 billion dollars. Ms. Holems and her company won numerous awards and praises from all sorts of organizations and media. Suddenly, in October 2015, the company started to collapse after an article in the Wall Street Journal raised concerns on its claims, opened the lid of doubts, and finally led to various investigations conducted on Theranos. The fancy story hit the ground very badly.

But, here comes the big puzzle. Theranos’ claims were not peer-reviewed before. They were never tested for accuracy nor approved by FDA either. Why didn’t any of the investors study the company’s technology before putting money into it? Why did many presses and organizations honor Ms. Holems and the company without even digging into the details? Why didn’t any member of the company’s “all-star” board wonder what they were really doing? It is unbelievable that a mirage was so big and obvious but nobody ever questioned it.

Why? Besides Ms. Holems’ personal charm and the political power behind the company, a key factor is our desire on the Holy Grail. We always want a simple elegant solution to solve the biggest problem of the universe. Let it be “DNA modifications”, “micro robot inside blood vessels”, or Theranos’ blood test at super low costs. As long as you promise to deliver the Holy Grail, investors rush to shovel money to your front door, and the media go crazy about you. After all, you are the next savior of the world, aren’t you? Unfortunately, all the promises on the Holy Grail in the past didn’t work out. They were like shooting stars. They went up unrealistically before any result was shown in clinical treatments. Then they went down even quicker when people realized it’s another false promise. But, this motion of finding the Holy Grail never ends. It just gets replaced by another buzzword every several years.

On the other hand, there is another reality totally opposite to the Holy Grail. In this reality, there is no fancy buzzword nor any likelihood of the Nobel Prize. But many successful clinical results are shown every day. Some of the diseases are believed cureless in modern medicine, but the recoveries of patient conditions are too clear to be denied. However, the mainstream people say that it’s not scientific, and they turn their backs to it. Even when they are forced to face this reality, they say that it’s one out of million chances of “human body self healing”. It is the Ugly Duckling. Even though the Ugly Duckling can swim and fly, nobody wants to look at it.

The Ugly Duckling is the ancient wisdom of Chinese Medicine: macroscopic diagnosis, herbal remedy, acupuncture, and other treatment methods. Well, did you just say “crap” and want to stop reading this article? You see. That’s exactly why I called it Ugly Duckling. No matter how many successful cases Chinese Medicine experts present, many people immediately discount Chinese Medicine to the ground or even negative when they hear the name “Chinese Medicine”. I don’t want to argue in this article if Chinese Medicine is scientific. (It is, by the way.) The mere fact is that, scientific or not, there are many successful treatments in Chinese Medicine beyond what modern medicine can explain. And, the statistics is far better than “one out of million chances” of human body self healing. Why can’t we face this fact seriously? Isn’t it much easier to start from something working in the clinical treatments than a fancy buzzword that won’t even be ready for human trials in many years?

People like the Holy Grail much more than the Ugly Duckling. So much more that they are willing to invest in far-reaching promises but not something working in the clinical treatments. Perhaps, it’s time for us to wake up from the dream of Holy Grail and pay more attention to Ugly Duckling. The Ugly Duckling will become a Swan. After all, this Ugly Duckling might well be the Holy Grail that is right in front of us but we chose to ignore.